December 30, 2012

World renowned experts from physicist Sir Martin Rees of Cambridge University to astrobiologist Paul Davis of Arizona State have asked that if we were to encounter alien technology far superior to our own, would we even realize what it was. A technology a million or more years in advance of ours would appear miraculous.

In fact, Davies writes in his book, Eerie Silence, that advanced technology might not even be made of matter. That it might have no fixed size or shape; have no well-defined boundaries. Is dynamical on all scales of space and time. Or, conversely, does not appear to do anything at all that we can discern. Does not consist of discrete, separate things; but rather it is a system,or a subtle higher-level correlation of things.

Are matter and information, Davies asks, all there is? Five hundred years ago, Davies writes, " the very concept of a device manipulating information, or software, would have been incomprehensible. Might there be a still higher level, as yet outside all human experience, that organizes electrons? If so, this "third level" would never be manifest through observations made at the informational level, still less at the matter level.

We should be open to the distinct possibility that advanced alien technology a billion years old may operate at the third, or perhaps even a fourth or fifth level -all of which are totally incomprehensible to the human mind at our current state of evolution in 2012.

Too many prerequisites are required before a basic understanding can be achieved so predictability is nearly impossible. Explain a simple wheel to a caveman, and he will understand. Explain a modern wheel with extra light synthetic alloys to maximize performance with run flat tires that auto-inflate and he won't care. To him, it's still just a wheel. Or try explaining a smart-TV to someone in 1955. It's almost impossible. Most people didn't even know what computers were. Or not. What do I know? I'm just a janitor. I get to work the zero-G training building this week. Yay. FML.

agree with the speculation that we may well be not competent to comprehend of the technology that developed the Universe billion of years back. In more recent times, old Indian scriptures mention a technology that flew carriages with special 'spiritual ' power without the need of modern jet engines in the days of Ramayana, 3000 to 5000 years back!
Narendra nath

I find the Rare Earth hypothesis a simpler explanation that fits with the facts of observation. The rest is speculation and wishful thnking--introducing hidden variables. Why not go to religious belief to satisfy the need for seeking a higher power?

Or maybe all of these many "civilizations" existing concurrently with us simply navigate a different path thru' our welkin... See "The Situation of Gravity" by Reg Mundy, and consider how else the universe might be "perceived". The "laws" of physics by which we plot our own path seem to be getting less rigid every day as new deviations are discovered and new "particles" are invented to patch-up the shaky foundations of our standard model. I never liked String Theory anyway....

@Ajax: An equivalent to the Fermi paradox or the Rare Earth hypothesis could have been made by, lets say, ants. Imagine two ants discussing about other advanced life in the cosmos. Would they be able to sense the pressence of humans living nearby, and if they could, would the ants realise humans as intelligent beings? The ants could just as well draw the same conclusions as the Rare Earth hypothesis does.